Increased fighting, and higher population density are a dangerous combination, and locals by and large are being prevented from fleeing the area. Unsurprisingly, this is leading to reports of a growing number of civilians killed and wounded in the area.

This has the PR people going into high gear, trying to manage the narrative around the deaths, with Western and Iraq officials accusing ISIS of forcing civilians into the city to use as human shields, and preventing them from relocating outside the city.

Civilians getting mistaken for fleeing ISIS fighters has been an ongoing problem for the US, who killed hundreds of civilians around the Syrian city of Manbij in such mistakes. Manbij was a much smaller city than Mosul, which has a population of over a million people potentially in the line of fire.

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Interestingly enough, we didn’t bat an eye when Stalin closed the city of Stalingrad and prevented the civilian population from leaving in the face of the German assault. Now Stalingrad is held up as a heroic stand against fascism.